OK – after some discussions in forum – I wanted to share an event and a few things learned…so that all can benefit.

LM and I were in a scene in which she was blindfolded and I was administering some combined impact and wand stimulation. I wanted to try out a new nipple clamp toy that I’d acquired. When I judged the moment to be correct – I applied the clamp to one nipple, and I was getting ready to apply to the other.

LM started yelling OW, OW, OW and wiggling in discomfort. None of these things are safewords – so I wasn’t sure if this was a problem – or just her getting used to a new toy and a new sensation. After a few more seconds – her pain was evident – and it was beyond her (considerably high) thresholds – so I started to remove the clamp. In the process of her thrashing and my attempt to remove the clamp – I actually ended up squeezing it very hard before I was able to remove it.

Needless to say – there are a few things to take away from this. During downtime afterwards – we discussed the issue, and we agreed that a few things should be changed.

1. New toys should be tested (on me first if possible) so that I know what the sensation is (and how to operate it). I tried the clamp – and that thing should have been called a bear trap instead of a clamp….it hurt. But since I didn’t try it on me first – I put my sub in unplanned discomfort. Plus – I didn’t have the familiarity and experience to rapidly remove it – especially when my sub was thrashing.

2. My reactions to the situation were slowed considerably because LM didn’t use a safeword (we use “yellow” and “red”). We scene frequently – and we’ve only once before used a safeword in scene. It’s been so long since we’ve even talked about safewords that using them wasn’t top of mind. In order for us to trust each other in scene – I need to trust that she will safeword so that I don’t take her beyond her boundaries.

We now have implemented a procedure at the beginning of our scenes. “Little Missy you will now submit to me” “Yes Sir” “What is your caution safeword?” “Yellow Sir” “What does that mean?” “Don’t stop the scene, sir, just reduce the intensity slightly” “Very Good, and what is your emergency safeword?” “Red Sir” “What does that mean?” “Stop the scene sir. Immediately release me.”

We hope that by repeating this at the beginning of our scenes – it will be top of mind – and if it’s ever needed – we’re prepared to use it.

This post really illustrates how important it is not to becone complacent. Bdsm can be very dangerous when we become to comfortable.

I to Mr.Shade have made the exact same mistakes, acted the same way and had the same conversation with MLT. Don’t beat yourself up, you have turned it into a positive and learned a very valuable lesson in a timely fashion before something more serious happened.

Your discussion in downtime was spot on. A scene should always begin with the reminder of safe words, and as a Dominant, I don’t give myself many rules but one is “always do to myself what I intend to to do MLT”.

Curvy has called yellow a few times. I always make a point to let her know in downtime after that I’m proud of her for speaking up. I like your ritual before as reminders. I will begin to incorporate into our play. Thank you for your post.

Wonderful post, lots of good information. In my dynamic, Natasha has a very low pain threshold and I have a very high threshold. I would recommend to others in a similar situation to try the new toy/technique on themselves, then try on their subs in a non scene setting. I tried clothes pins on my nipples once and thought it was interesting, I put them on Natasha, and you would have thought I was performing surgery with out anesthetic.

‘We now have implemented a procedure at the beginning of our scenes. “Little Missy you will now submit to me” “Yes Sir” “What is your caution safeword?” “Yellow Sir” “What does that mean?” “Don’t stop the scene, sir, just reduce the intensity slightly” “Very Good, and what is your emergency safeword?” “Red Sir” “What does that mean?” “Stop the scene sir. Immediately release me.”’

Minx and I spent some time talking about this. We are wanting to work on making sure she doesn’t feel a stigma from using a safeword either out of fear of disappointing me or fear of me retreating to far and reverting on her. We are both wondering,what are some ways that we could with minimal risk, or at least having an awareness of the risk, create scenarios where we can have her use caution and stop safewords and gain confidence for both of us in use and reacting to safe words.

OTW, Wench had trouble with using her safe word for fear of disappointing me. We had downtime about how important is was that she would use it. During a scene afterwards I would, for instance, put her nipple clamps on and tighten them up until I felt that they were as tight as she would like them to the point of too much pain. I would ask how they were and if she said they were too tight I would take them off and we would again talk about how important it was that she would us her safe word and it disappointed me more that she didn’t.

The scenes after that I backed way off and kept asking her how she was doing until I felt comfortable with her responses. Body language is important. Watch how she is reacting, holding breath, clenched teeth, and talk to her and ask how she is doing. After awhile it will become second nature. We have never reached the red level but have yellow a few times.

It does, one of the things we are trying to navigate as well as her using them is me not over reacting and backing out of the scene if she does need to yellow. She has only yellowed once and I didn’t realize it I backed off pretty much all the way on what I was doing and she noticed that I wasn’t still running the scene well.